Laying Some Ground Work

I found out recently that I'm being invited back to the Folk Alliance's Winter Music Camp this year.  It was one of the most awesome music experiences I have ever had last year and I am extremely excited to get to work with Mark Ruben and his team again.

During last year's event, I was encourage by Mark, Pops Bayless, Guy Forsyth, and countless others to take advantage of the conference that happens along side the camp.  The conference is basically a place where the artists and the industry can get together and make those crucial relationships that enable music to be what it is.

There is a trade show floor where everything from promotion companies and CD companies (like CD Maker) to string makers (like D'Addario) and instrument makers (like Nechville Banjos) can work directly with artists and novices.  There are jam sessions happening in every hallway or public (or private) space in the hotel.  There is a keynote speaker and tons of music industry info passed out.

But what makes the event special for the artists is the showcases.

Showcases are an opportunity for artists to play their music for a wide array of people including promoters, club owners, other musicians, and just plan fans.  The goal of which is to get yourself know as a performer and get more gigs.

Last year, the showcase was the single most suggested thing that everyone seemed to tell me I had to do.  As much as I trust that advice, I am extremely glad I didn't.  Why?  Because I would have been in way over my head.  I had no album, no promotional material, barely even a website.  Hell, I wasn't really even settling into a genre yet!

But this year... This year I'm going whole hog.

I've got a lot of goals I need to accomplish between now and then, but basically they boil down to one overarching goal to help get the most out of a showcase:  I need to release an album.

I won't go into everything that I need to do to make this happen just yet.  Lord knows I will be putting my experience out here for everyone to live along with.  But already without even laying down a single track I am getting the feeling that this may be one of the biggest projects I have ever undertaken.

Here is my short list of to-dos and dailies:

- Write music everyday

- Record something everyday

- Pick 10 songs (5 originals, 5 standards) to put on the album

- Get album art created

- Photo shoot (for website, showcase flyers, and album)

- License songs (copyright mine, get rights to standards)

- Record album (pro studio or home studio?)

- Produce the actual CDs (mix, master, buy)

- Merch, Merch, Merch

As you can see, there is a lot and within each of those is a whole ball of questions to be answered.  How do we eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.

~Danny

Being Humbled by My Own Equipment

I know, the picture is flipped...

A very humbling moment today...  I had been having some troubles with my new Loar LH-200 (Cindy).  The "B" string had horrible intonation.  As a result, most chords that had a "D" fingered on that string sounded horrible.  I was making do, but I really was worried that the honeymoon had wore off and that I was going to be trying to get rid of this thing...

Then, I put it up on the bench for a different issue altogether (added a strap button; no big whoop). On the bench in the light, I noticed something looked wrong about the "B" and high "E" strings.  After putting the calipers to it, I figured out I had swapped those two in the last (first) restring... a month ago.

I went a month with this issue and never once thought that I had done something wrong.  Now it all makes sense, but I was really getting unhappy with playing the guitar.  Boy am I embarrassed!

It just goes to show you that no matter how much experience we have, we still make really obvious mistakes and it might take a completely different perspective to understand what went wrong.

Brown Out, Light Bulb Comes On

Music accomplishments seem to come from nowhere.  Tonight (Tuesday night) I was sitting at my church waiting for the ukulele jam I host to start.  I was early, no one was around, and a brownout hits the church.  Dark, holding my uke, Mary (Kala Tenor), in the basement and I can't see.  After a minute of fumbling my way towards the light, I end up sitting on the steps in front of a door waiting a few minutes for the lights to decide to come back on.

Screw it, I'm here by myself, let's do something weird to practice.  I start playing "Exactly Like You", one of my favorite tunes, and working out a solo.  I've long noticed how I can sub in notes not in the regular key (I play ELY in C major) to create some cool tension in the solo.  However, some of the talk about modal improvisation was really lost on me.  I'd taken a couple workshops and woodshedded modes for hours, but I just never got it to click.

The lights came on...  About that time, I decided to play a solo over the A section using all seven of the modes of C one at a time.  This is going to sound abstract if you aren't familiar with the modal system, so here is a quick overview:

Modes are just the major scale starting in different places:

C	Major/Ionian	C D E F G A B
D	Dorian	D E F G A B C
E	Phrygian	E F G A B C D
F	Lydian	F G A B C D E
G	Mixolydian	G A B C D E F
A	Aeolian	A B C D E F G
B	Locrian	B C D E F G A

You can also keep them all with the relative same starting note (they'll just be in a different major key):

C	Major/Ionian	C D E F G A B
C	Dorian	C D Eb F G A Bb
C	Phrygian	C Db Eb F G Ab Bb
C	Lydian	C D E F# G A B
C	Mixolydian	C D E F G A Bb
C	Aeolian	C D Eb F G Ab Bb
C	Locrian	C Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb

That is the theory anyway, I have trouble thinking all of that nonsense, though when I play.  I learned long ago to think about it instead in terms of the numbers.  Basically, 1 is major, 2 is dorian, 3 is Phrygian, etc.  That and look at it on the fretboard in a certain way.  Let me show you what I mean:

If you are really paying attention, you will notice that there are only five different shapes/fingerings here.  That is the part of the point, you can go a long way only using those five shapes for soloing.

Now, back to the light coming on...

I played "ELY" while using each of these shapes (one at a time).  So, I only used notes from these shapes.  Some sounded great, others sounded good occasionally, some I just couldn't make it sound good.  But, the effect was tremendous to me.  Each of the different modes had it's own flavor and each left me feeling a different way about the mood of the tune (even when that wasn't the most pleasant sound throughout).

A next step for me was trying to play different shapes over different chords, but still thinking about it being a mode of C.

For instance, the A section of "ELY" is:

| C / / /

| C / / /

| D7 / / /

| D7 / / /

| G7 / / /

| G7 / / /

| C / / /

| C / / / |

(You could add a turn around at the end if you wanted...)

Over the C major chords, I played either a major/ionian shape or a dorian.  Over the D7 I played lydian and over the G7 I played mixolydian.  This is by no means a set in stone approach, but it gave me a new way of toying with the solos I was developing.

In swing, solos have to hint or reflect the melody.  If we get to far off of that, the listeners (and in many cases, the dancers) get lost and we don't want to loose them.  The idea I'm playing with above is a little departed from the basic melody, but when you look at the melody of "ELY", you find that in many points along the tune it follows much of the same ideas.  In fact, I kept finding myself resolving to melody notes as I worked through my newly crafted solos.

Now, I want to fast forward to around 8:00 as we were doing our jam.  My ukulele group is light on soloists.  Most of the players are strummers and they like to sing along if they know the words.  (And let me be absolutely clear that there is nothing wrong with that.)  So, I am often the one who gets called to take a solo when it comes around.  And when we played the great Hank Williams tune "You're Cheatin' Heart", I was chompin' at the bit to get my solo in.

It was rough at first as I started straight in on the new idea and didn't let the melody in.  Once I did, I started jumping off for just little fills on long holds.  Before I knew it, I was in and out of modes quick, using all of my fretboard, and generally playing one of the funnest solos I've improvised in a long time.  All in the key of A (which I hadn't tackled yet; remember "ELY" is in C)!

So here is the conclusion: Melodies are the hardy soup base for solos.  But the spices and hardy stuff comes from knowing how to use those scales.  So, practice both and do things that seem weird at first.  It will eventually turn on the light.

Public Displays of Music

A friend sent me this pic and I'm just a little scared that it looks a little like me (but I don't wear baseball caps in public anymore).  I don't want to be political about guns, so I'm changing the topic quick...

You should play in public more often.  I don't care the venue, but grab your acoustic (or electric if you want) instrument and go to a public space and play.  In fact, don't even busk, just play.

By the way, busking means playing publicly for money. Think of the guy a the local shopping plaza who brought his guitar and opens his case to accept money and tips.  Panhandling is asking for money without any performance (aside from the made up story about your car breaking down and needing to get uptown to go to court). There is a lot of feud between cities and musicians about the difference between busking and panhandling.  I've been on the wrong side of that a time or two.  Personally, I believe all city laws limiting the scope of acoustic busking inhibit my constitutional rights to free speech and freedom to assemble.  But, again, I'm not trying to get too political here.

Why should you play in public?  Because you need the experience of feeling like every eye is on you while you play music.  It can be a rush, but it is usually intimidating.  It is much better to get this out of the way in an informal situation than to be forced into confronting it first time on a paying gig.

Secondly, the world needs more good music. I understand that many of us are not confident in our abilities and that there are probably some "musicians" who wouldn't qualify for the adjective "good".  But still, most musicians are pretty good.  If you can play an hours worth of a set without stopping, then go for it.

Lastly, you just need to be outside more.  Being outside does a lot for your mood and health.  We are just now figuring this out in modern medicine, but we are designed to live outside.  Aside form that, music is great medicine too.

So, go have a public display of music.

~Danny

Your Own Style

At a certain point, you go from trying to learn to play a genre to learning to play tunes. Really, this is the true way of it. If you want to play Wes Montgomery, start playing his tunes. If you want to be Bob Wills, learn Bob Wills' music.

But style is everything. These players that came before you who defined a genre or sub genre have their own influences, but ultimately at one point stopped covering their heros and started playing like themselves. This is where so many get lost. Either they jump too  late onto their own style or they never do it at all. 

Almost never do we jump too early onto our own style. Because we are constantly influence by our surroundings, developing our own way of speaking through our music is never something we can start too early on.

To use the bandwagon analogy again, if you get on the wagon early, you are still on the wagon. Too late, you've missed.

Conclusion: Stop covering. Play tunes they way you play them. Add all your experience and influences up and give the sum over to your instrument.